The District Secretary

1942. USSR. Directed by Ivan Pyr’ev. Screenplay by Iosif Pruit. With Vasilij Vanin, Michail Astangov, Marina Ladynina. Soviet genre director Ivan Pyr’ev’s first war movie, made while the German army continued its advance into the Russian heartland, is a grim and resolute partisan drama, if not without its lighter moments. The dramatic opening concerns the destruction of a power plant to keep it from enemy hands; thereafter, the sturdy partisans, who include Pyr’ev’s wife and leading lady Marina Ladynina, contend with spies and wreckers, as well as the German occupying army. It is with this movie that Pyr’ev showed himself to be a master of choreographed mass action as well as patriotic agitprop. As noted by Denise J. Youngblood in her history of Soviet war films, The District Secretary is “a rousing and entertaining movie from a director who could easily have made a Hollywood career for himself.” Preserved by Cinémathéque de Toulouse. In Russian; English subtitles. 91 min.

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